WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The remains of a U.S. Navy
pilot, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and
returned to his family in the United States. Identified is Cmdr. John A.
Feldhaus, of Lawrenceberg, Tennessee.

Feldhaus was buried with full military honors
November 20, 2001, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He is survived
by four children and seven grandchildren. His widow, Suzanne, died in 1987.

During the service, Navy F/A-18 Hornets performed
the traditional flyover with aircraft assembled in the "missing man" formation.
Among his medals, Feldhaus wore the Distinguished Flying Cross and the
Purple Heart.

On October 8, 1966, Feldhaus took off from
the carrier USS Oriskany (CVA 34) in an A-1H Skyraider on an armed reconnaissance
mission over Thanh Hoa Province, North Vietnam.

As he and his wingman entered heavy clouds,
Feldhaus radioed that he had been hit by enemy ground fire and his right
wing was on fire.

His wingman never saw Feldhaus' aircraft again,
but he did report seeing a fireball on the ground which he believed to
be an aircraft crash.

The wingman and another aircraft searched the
area of the crash without success. They saw no parachute and heard no emergency
radio signals. The visual search was hampered by enemy ground fire and
deteriorating weather. The search continued for several days, but revealed
nothing.

In October 1993, a joint U.S./Vietnamese team
led by Joint Task Force-Full Accounting conducted an investigation in Thanh
Hoa Province where they believed the crash occurred, but they found no
aircraft debris or remains.

Between 1996 and 2000, another four investigations
or excavations were conducted in Vietnam, yielding aircraft debris, pilot-related
artifacts, personal effects and remains.

The U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory
Hawaii (CILHI) used mitochondrial DNA to confirm the identification. The
process involved matching a skeletal fragment to that of a Feldhaus family
member.

"There is finally some closure," wrote Jeff
Feldhaus, one of two surviving sons, in an e-mail interview. "It's been
a long time in coming ... 35 years. I am glad he is home and to be buried
where he belongs with all the other heroes of our country."

There are currently more than 1,900 Americans
unaccounted-for from the war in Southeast Asia.
From a contemporary press report: 16 November 2001:

35 years after his death, Navy pilot to rest
in peace at Arlington

His name was John Anthony Feldhaus.

But perhaps only his late mother and the nuns
at Sacred Heart School in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, where he attended grade
school, called him John Anthony.

To everyone of a certain age  born before
the Vietnam War  he was Jack or Jackie: second son of a brick mason,
a give-it-all tackle on the county high school's football team, a firm-jawed
young man with an eye for adventure.

To a generation born after the war in Southeast
Asia, he was a name on a marker, a grave containing no body.

Feldhaus, a Navy lieutenant, was shot down
over North Vietnam's Thanh Hoa province. His A-1H Skyraider was struck
by enemy fire as he returned from a bombing mission. The plane went down
on October 8, 1966, five days after his 28th birthday.

There was no evidence that Feldhaus, a father
of four, survived the crash, and he officially remained missing in action,
until he was declared dead about a decade later. The pilot's remains lay
in the field where the single-engine bomber drilled a 20-foot-deep
crater.

It appeared the rice field would be his permanent
final resting place until last month, when the service informed Feldhaus'
children and siblings that DNA testing had positively identified remains
from the crash as the late Navy aviator.

Tuesday morning, his children and siblings
will bury their father and brother with full military honors in Arlington
National Cemetery.

''The Navy's going to do it right. There will
be a 21-gun salute and a flyover of jets, if the authorities allow it,''
said Larry Feldhaus, the oldest of the siblings, now retired and living
in Hendersonville.

''It's good that this is finally going to happen.
We've waited a long time.''

With only 18 months separating them, the two
oldest Feldhaus boys were good friends, most of the time. ''People would
say they'd see us walking to school and we'd be fighting on one block and
laughing in the next block,'' Larry reminisced yesterday, a photo of his
uniformed brother in his lap.

''The last time I saw him was August of 1966.
He had flown his plane into Dobbins Air Force Base outside of Atlanta,
and I met him there,'' Larry said, a solemn look on his face.

''He wanted to know if I would be executor
of his will.''

Just in case something happened over there.

Jack Feldhaus didn't have to go to Vietnam.
He had been a Navy pilot for several years and was an aviation instructor
in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he could have safely served out his Navy
tenure and, perhaps, switched to a commercial airline after leaving.

''He never wanted to be on the sidelines. He
always liked being in the thick of things,'' said Jimmy Moore, a high school
friend who also still lives in Lawrenceburg. Moore was one of five friends,
including Jack, who were inseparable during their high school years.

''The last time I saw him he said he wanted
to go to Vietnam. He was a career man and wanted to make rank,'' said former
Lawrenceburg City Commissioner Billy Helton, another of the group of five.

In reality, he was promoted. During the period
when the downed pilot was MIA, he was promoted to commander.

Jack Feldhaus perished while returning to the
USS Oriskany after a bombing mission over North Vietnam.

''The reports state that he still had some
bombs and he dipped down below cloud cover to attack some trucks. He radioed
another plane that stayed up above that he had been hit. That pilot said
that he saw evidence of a crash, smoke and fire,'' LarryFeldhaus said.

Late on that early fall night, a Navy officer
arrived in Lawrenceburg to inform the pilot's parents.

The lieutenant's 7-year-old kid sister answered
the door.

''I remember it vividly,'' said Mary Ann Sanders,
now a math teacher at a junior high school in Katy, Texas, near Houston.

''Him being missing was a big focus all the
time I was growing up. Whenever there would be POWs on the television,
the Navy would call us to see if we saw him. Then after he was declared
dead, we always waited for them to make positive identification,'' Sanders
said in a telephone interview.

''My mother always wanted to know that he had
been brought back.''

Margaret Feldhaus died in May, just days after
the report on the DNA match was completed. The Navy did not compile all
of its findings until last month, 35 years after the Lawrenceburg man's
plane crashed on the other side of the globe.

"It really would have been nice for her to
know, but she knows now,'' Sanders said. ''I'm very sure about that.''
Wednesday, 11/21/01

Tennessee hero from another war finally laid
to rest

WASHINGTON  Three Navy fighter jets thundering
over the burial ceremony for John Anthony Feldhaus at Arlington National
Cemetery yesterday were a far cry from the single-engine, propeller-driven
bomber the late Navy pilot was flying when he was shot down over North
Vietnam in 1966.

But 40 of Feldhaus' relatives  including all
four of his children  and friends attending his funeral with full military
honors at the nation's premier military cemetery appreciated the sentiment.

"It was exceptional  the best thing they could
have done,'' said Jeff Feldhaus of Houston, one of John Feldhaus' sons.
''He got everything he deserved.''

John Feldhaus of Lawrenceburg had just turned
28 when his A-1H Skyraider was hit by enemy fire over Thanh Hoa province
as he was returning from a bombing mission. The military listed him as
missing in action and promoted him to Commander before declaring him dead
after about a decade.

His body remained in the 20-foot crater from
the crash until it was recovered 35 years later, and his siblings and children
were told earlier this year that DNA testing had positively identified
the remains as the naval aviator.

Feldhaus was the second Tennessean to be buried
in Arlington National Cemetery in less than two months. Lieutenant
Commander Otis Vincent Tolbert, a Navy intelligence officer born
in Millington, near Memphis, and killed in the September 11 attack on the
Pentagon, was buried September 27, 2001.

Pamela Smith of Houston, the oldest of John
Feldhaus' children, was 8 years old when her father was shot down. She
said the funeral ''brought back the loss.'' She and her siblings already
are older than her father was at his death.

''What I remember a lot is missing him and
wondering where he was and what he was doing,'' she said.

Amanda Rose, who was only 4 when her father
died, said it was an honor to be at the funeral.

''I really don't know much about my father
 just what other family members have told me,'' she said.

The services began yesterday with a Mass of
Christian burial in a cemetery chapel and included a ceremonial honor guard
of a 23-man Navy rifle platoon, a colors unit and a band. Six sailors were
pallbearers and made a precision drill out of moving theflag-draped casket from the hearse to the
chapel.

After Mass, the mourners and honor guard accompanied
a caisson pulled by six gray horses carrying the casket to a grave site
under bright sun and brisk northern wind. The short service featured the
band playing The Navy Hymn, the fly-over, three volleys from a seven-man
rifle squad and a bugler playing taps.

The folded American flag was presented along
with a note of condolence from Navy Secretary Gordon R. England to Rose
and John A. Feldhaus Jr., another of the late aviator's sons. Both now
live in Trenton, New Jersey.

Henry Feldhaus, a cousin and former mayor of
Shelbyville, said the family had always held out some slim hope the naval
aviator was alive until his remains were positively identified.

A RESOLUTION to honor the memory of Commander
John Anthony Feldhaus and his meritorious service to the United States.

WHEREAS, our nation was conceived by individuals
who were willing to sacrifice their personal safety and concerns to ensure
our individual and collective freedom, and the Volunteer State is especially
proud to be the home of so many valiant men and women who have performed
above and beyond the call of duty; and

WHEREAS, thousands of Tennesseans have continued
this time-honored tradition of volunteerism through service in the United
States Navy; and

WHEREAS, John Anthony Feldhaus was one such
estimable Tennessean who served with courage and conviction; a native of
Lawrenceburg, Jack Feldhaus was wholly devoted to his Nation and countrymen,
and he made the ultimate sacrifice while serving as a Naval Aviator; and

WHEREAS, having been a Pilot in the United
States Navy for several years at the onset of the Vietnam War, Lieutenant
Feldhaus could have completed his tenure as an instructor in a stateside
flight school, but he made the patriotic decision to volunteer his vast
talents to be utilized in Vietnam; and

WHEREAS, while returning to the USS Oriskany
after a bombing mission, Lieutenant Feldhaus, as was his nature, went above
and beyond the call of duty to complete an elective attack, utilizing his
excess ordinance; his A-1H was struck by enemy fire and went down, and
Lieutenant Feldhaus was thereafter declared missing in action; and

WHEREAS, promoted to Commander while classified
MIA, John Anthony Feldhaus was eventually presumed lost; and WHEREAS, although
it initially appeared that Vietnam would remain his final resting place,
the body of Commander Feldhaus was recently located and positively identified
by the Navy, allowing a return to his native land for burial; and

WHEREAS, Commander Feldhaus has long occupied
a revered position in the history of our Nation and its Armed Forces, and
he now rests in the hallowed ground of Arlington National Cemetery among
his fellow courageous patriots who gave the ultimate sacrifice in defense
of current and future citizens of their Nation; and

WHEREAS, Commander Feldhaus served with great
bravery and ability and performed his duties with the utmost skill, dedication,
and professionalism; his service could only be categorized as outstanding
and he has earned all honor and recognition that we could possibly bestow;
now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE ONE HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, THE
SENATE CONCURRING,

That we join with the family of Commander John
Anthony Feldhaus to honorhis memory, reflecting fondly on his selfless
devotion, unsurpassed moral courage, and meritorious service to the United
States Navy, and we express our pride in, and gratitude for, his supreme
contributions to this State and our Nation.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED,

That an appropriate copy of this resolution
be prepared for presentation with this final clause omitted from such copy.